Trust and Love
Chapter 4: Helping each other
Gabriella froze. Her heart broke into millions of pieces when Alex had told his nightmare, which really happened.
"Mom?" Alex asked, seeing that her mom went out of the blue. "Mom!"
"Huh?" Gabriella had snapped out of her thoughts.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah. Don't worry."
A sound broke out from outside.
"Oh man! The bus! I gotta go mom!" Alex grabbed his bag and dashed off.
"But you didn't even have breakfast yet!" She called off.
"I'll have it in school later! See you Mom!" He called off before entering the school bus.
Gabriella sighed. Having Troy know where I am and about Alex is getting even harder. What happens if he knew that Alex was his? Gabriella thought. She sighed again. This isn't gonna be easy.
With Troy
Troy knocked on the house of the Danforths, hoping to catch Chad before he goes to the gym. Troy knocked one more time, no one still answered. He was about to give up when Chad opened the door. The two men just looked at each other, examining their cuts and bruises. Chad was about to close the door when Troy put his foot on the door to stop him.
"What do you want, Bolton? The last time we saw each other, we weren't best friends anymore. So, beat it, man." Chad hissed.
"Come on, man. We may not be best friends, but we are brothers. And I came here to apologize for my misbehavior yesterday and…" Troy said as Chad lifted his head to look at Troy. "I really need your help right now. I'm desperate."
Chad opened the door widely for Troy to come in. They sat down at the couch and Bob, the butler, handed out drinks for them. Chad couldn't resist and say no to Troy because he knew that if he needed help, Troy would be doing the same for him, in an argument or not.
"So… what is it about?" Chad asked.
"It's about… Gabriella."
"What about it, man?"
"She… I want her back, Chad. I want her back so badly. I… I went to her house yesterday, drunk, and she, of course, didn't like it. We started shouting at each other until we ended up fighting but you know what? She still took care of me this morning. Well, it was because her son was gonna wake up but still, she didn't tell me to go and drive out and do crazy stuff. She knocked at my car window and told me to get in their house so she can fix my headache." Troy sort of rambled but Chad could catch up. Being friends for 24 years didn't mean that they just knew each other; they inhaled and basically live like they were conjoined twins who knew everything the other one does.
"Dude, why did you shout at her? You just made everything worse. She never likes men who shout at her and to think you know everything."
"Don't you think I know that after 2 years of dating her?"
"I know, I know but the question is… why did you do it?" Chad asked him.
"I think it's because she already forgot about me. I can't accept that after everything we've been through and everything we've said to each other, she forgot about me. Why would she forget about me so easily? We even promised each other that we will get married one day, have that white picket fence she wanted, have kids, have a dog and grow old together. Plus she has a son, a life, probably a great job and a husband." Troy realized that he didn't see any 'man of the house' when he went inside earlier. "Where is her husband anyway?"
"That I can't tell you Troy boy." Chad said as he leaned on the couch.
"Why?"
"Because you need to know it on your own. Do some research or whatever."
"Yeah, why not." Troy shrugged. Suddenly, Troy's phone vibrated. He looked at it to that his alarm to go to the office had gone off. "Hey, thanks for the help, man." Troy stood up and turned to look back at Chad.
"I'm sorry, man." Chad apologized.
"Hey, brothers fight." Troy replied.
"We're still brothers." Chad said as he stood up and gave Troy a hug.
"Anyway man, I'll see you in the gym. I really need to go. Bye!" Troy said as he opened the door and got to his car.
"Sure. Bye!" Chad replied and closed the door.
At Troy's office
Troy opened his laptop and double-clicked Mozilla Firefox, and went to Google. He typed in Gabriella's full name and a lot of results came out. He clicked the one at an East High school paper.
On the paper:
Gabriella Montez leads the Wildcats Scholastic Decathlon team to victory and Troy Bolton leads Wildcats Basketball team to championships! Wildcats are unbearable. Go Wildcats!!...
Troy just smiled at the memory and went back to the Google search of Gabriella and clicked another one.
On the paper:
Gabriella Montez graduates first in Medicine as she follows the footsteps of her well-known mother, Maria Montez, who is now a retired surgeon. Maria Montez left her hospital and walked down from being a chief resident to rest up and catch up with her grandson, Alexander Alan Montez…
Troy just shrugged and remembered that that's why they always move because it was at times when Maria Montez gets transferred to another hospital. He realized that he needed to look for the right article that he was looking for. Scanning on the first page, he saw nothing that satisfied him on his research; but as he clicked on the second page, he saw the right one he needed. He clicked it and an error occurred.
"What? What happened?" Troy asked himself.
You are not allowed to see this page. You are not an authorized person. Please leave this page before we detect your hard drive and internet cable or Wi-Fi. 10… It said as it started to count backwards from 10. Troy quickly closed the window and closed his laptop.
"DAMN! How am I supposed to get it now?" He asked himself again. He just sat there and suddenly mouth form into a smile. "I'm Troy Bolton! Getting a whiz would be easy." He shouted.
With that Troy turned off the lights and went back to his bed to get some rest, and get ready for a bright day tomorrow. To thought you can hide everything from me. He thought.
The sun rose to a beautiful burst of the morning dew. Gabriella yawned and took a shower. After taking her shower she dressed up and knocked on the door of her son.
"Alex, get up." She said as she knocked on the door and received a groan as a response. She smiled and went downstairs to cook up breakfast for the two of them.
Alex looked at his alarm clock to see that it was already 6:45 am, and the bus arrives at his house at 7:30. He groaned and got up to take a shower. After dressing up, he went down with his bag on his shoulder and saw his mom preparing the table for breakfast.
"Morning mom." He kissed his mom and put his bag on the sofa, and took a seat on the table.
"Morning to you too." Gabriella said as she turned on the television on the kitchen but lowered the volume.
"Hey, I think I'll be out by 7. Maybe we can get some dinner at your Uncle Peter's pizza house. Sound good?" Gabriella asked as she took her jacket from the rack by the door.
"Yeah, sure." He looked at his mom as she grabbed on her stuff for work. Guess she's going to work early. He thought.
"Meet you at the Pizza house later, ok?" Alex just gave a nod as a response to his mother. "Anyway, I need to go already. The chief got me locked." Gabriella said as she made a face which caused Alex to chuckle, and that made her smile. "I'll see you later." She put her hand on the door knob and looked at her son again. "Love you." She smiled and went out.
Alex just smiled weakly and put his plate on the sink. He took a deep breath in and took his bag. Every time Gabriella goes to work early, the mother and son have a routine. When she already left, he will wait for his school bus inside the house and when the bus arrives, he will take the spare keys of the house with him and lock the house before going in the bus.
Troy's office
"How could that be not possible?!" Troy was mad. No, furious. He wanted a whiz tech person but eventually he couldn't get one.
"Because Sir, it's somewhat illegal." Answered his employee.
"Illegal? We are going to pay the whiz person or whatever! That's not illegal… and not bad."
"Not that Sir. What I mean is hacking in into the files of the Department of Health. It's practically under the government Sir." The employee reasoned out.
"Whatever. Just get the hell out of my office and out of my site. I'm in a bad mood, so tell everyone not to give me bad news. Okay?" The employee just nodded in response before leaving Troy's office.
What am I gonna do? I need to see this. I think it will open up a little something and another something that Gabriella just can't resist in seeing, so she would really need to see me. But the failure in my plan is, how is it supposed to happen if I can't hack this stupid site. Well, I can directly take it from the main office but Gabriella would easily know about it. This isn't working. I think I need another plan. Troy thought.
It was a long day for Troy as he was signing papers for some commercial that Nike wanted him to do. He sighed and leaned back on his chair. He was about to fall into deep slumber when his phone rang.
Chad Calling
Troy groaned and answered the phone. "Yes Chad? I was about to—"
"Troy, Jessica just called me! After 10 fucking years!"
"Jessica who?"
"Jessica Parkson! The mother of Jesse William Danforth! Clear enough?"
"Yeah… Why'd she call you?"
"She wants to take Will away from me! I don't know what to do."
"What?! After 10 years you struggled juggling your children, who have different mothers, and she wants the custody of Will just now? After 10 years of abandoning you in thin air, and saying she now wants custody? That's not fair, man."
"I know!! What should I do, dude? I'm practically panicking here."
"I think you should take this to the court."
"What?! Are you insane?!?!"
"A little, but you have a big chance in this one. Will has been with you for 10 years and you told him the truth. You told him he was conceived in drunken sex and his mother left him. We have a case here! After you win, you can arrange a rule or agreement or something."
"I think I'll take your offer, man. So where do I sign?"
"Chad! Seriously, you need a real lawyer to handle this, not me."
"You're Troy Bolton, that's close enough."
"Shut up, Chad! Don't get too nervous and freaked out. I will be in testimony. Don't worry."
"Okay. I'll just go to a Law firm and file it as a case, right?"
"Yes but before you do that, look for the best lawyer, so you won't lose."
"Okay. Got that, captain."
"And bring Will because they might something out of him. Okay, man?"
"Sure… yeah… we'll go to the firm after school."
"That's a great idea."
"Can I ask for a favor, Troy?"
"Anything, man."
"Can you baby sit my kids for tonight? It's Bob's day-off, so no one's going to watch the kids."
"Sure, I'll do it."
"Thanks, man."
"No problem."
Both men hang-up and Troy went back to his work. Instead of having those 20 minutes of break, he used it all just talking with Chad. Well, at least it was for a good cause.
After school, Alex quickly went to his report buddy's house, Aimee Harriet's house. They were making on their report about frogs and their nature around them in life. Alex and Aimee were just making experiments and observing the frogs on their daily basis.
It was already 7 o'clock and Alex freaked. "Sorry Aimee, I can't join you guys for dinner because I still need to meet up with my mom at the pizza house. Anyway, bye!" Alex left with a small wave and hurried out.
He used his bike to go to the pizza house. He thought his mom was already there, but she wasn't. Maybe I'm just early, I'll just wait for her. He thought.
The clock read 8 o'clock; Alex had been sitting at the same spot for an hour. Workers went up to him and asked if he wanted anything, but he declined the attention. His stomach really wanted to eat now but how was he supposed to eat when the person he was waiting for was 1 hour late. But if she was late, she would call him or text him to inform him about everything.
Is she really coming? He asked himself.